SONG-SURF

By the Same Author

Nirvana Days
Yolanda of Cyprus
A Night in Avignon
Charles di Tocca
David
Many Gods

SONG-SURF

BY

CALE YOUNG RICE

NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
MCMX
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION
INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
PUBLISHED, SEPTEMBER, 1910

TO
MY SISTERS

FOREWORD

These poems, first published as "Song-Surf" in 1900, by a firm which failed before the book, left the press, were republished with additions as the "lyrics" of "Plays & Lyrics," by Hodder & Stoughton, of London, in 1905. Revision and omissions have been made for this volume of a uniform edition in which they now appear.

PAGE
With Omar [3]
Jael [16]
To the Sea [22]
The Day-Moon [25]
A Sea-Ghost [27]
On the Moor [29]
The Cry of Eve [31]
Mary at Nazareth [35]
Adelil [38]
Intimation [40]
In July [41]
From Above [44]
By the Indus [45]
Evocation [47]
The Child God Gave [49]
The Winds [51]
Transcended [54]
Love's Way to Childhood [55]
Autumn [57]
Shinto [58]
Maya [60]
A Japanese Mother [62]
The Dead Gods [64]
Call to Your Mate, Bob-White [68]
The Dying Poet [70]
The Outcast [73]
April [76]
August Guests [78]
To a Dove [79]
At Tintern Abbey [81]
Oh, Go Not Out [83]
Human Love [85]
Ashore [86]
The Victory [88]
At Winter's End [89]
Mother-Love [91]
To a Singing Warbler [93]
Songs to A. H. R.:
I. The World's, and Mine [95]
II. Love-Call in Spring [96]
III. Mating [97]
IV. Untold [98]
V. Love-Watch [99]
VI. At Amalfi [99]
VII. On the Pacific [101]
The Atoner [103]
To the Spring Wind [104]
The Ramble [105]
Return [108]
Lisette [111]
From One Blind [113]
In a Cemetery [114]
Waking [116]
Storm-Ebb [117]
Lingering [119]
Faun-Call [121]
The Lighthouseman [123]
Serenity [125]
Wanton June [127]
Spirit of Rain [129]
Tearless [131]
Sunset-Lovers [133]
The Empty Cross [135]
Unburthened [137]
To Her Who Shall Come [139]
Storm-Twilight [142]
Slaves [143]
Avowal to the Nightingale [144]
Before Autumn [147]
Fulfilment [149]
Last Sight of Land [151]
Silence [153]

SONG-SURF

WITH OMAR

I sat with Omar by the Tavern door,
Musing the mystery of mortals o'er,
And soon with answers alternate we strove
Whether, beyond death, Life hath any shore.

"Come, fill the cup," said he. "In the fire of Spring
Your Winter-garment of Repentance fling.
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To flutter—and the Bird is on the Wing."

"The Bird of Time?" I answered. "Then have I
No heart for Wine. Must we not cross the Sky
Unto Eternity upon his wings—Or,
failing, fall into the Gulf and die?"

"Ay; so, for the Glories of this World sigh some,
And some for the Prophet's Paradise to come;
But you, Friend, take the Cash—the Credit leave,
Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum!"

"What! take the Cash and let the Credit go?
Spend all upon the Wine the while I know
A possible To-morrow may bring thirst
For Drink but Credit then shall cause to flow?"

"Yea, make the most of what you yet may spend,
Before we too into the Dust descend;
Dust into Dust, and under Dust, to lie,
Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and—sans End!"

"Into the Dust we shall descend—we must.
But can the soul not break the crumbling Crust
In which he is encaged? To hope or to
Despair he will—which is more wise or just?"

"The worldly hope men set their hearts upon
Turns Ashes—or it prospers: and anon,
Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face,
Lighting a little hour or two—is gone."

"Like Snow it comes—to cool one burning Day;
And like it goes—for all our plea or sway.
But flooding tears nor Wine can ever purge
The Vision it has brought to us away."

"But to this world we come and Why not knowing,
Nor Whence, like water willy-nilly flowing;
And out of it, as Wind along the waste,
We know not Whither, willy-nilly blowing."

"True, little do we know of Why or Whence.
But is forsooth our Darkness evidence
There is no Light?—the worm may see no star
Tho' heaven with myriad multitudes be dense."

"But, all unasked, we're hither hurried Whence?
And, all unasked, we're Whither hurried hence?
O, many a cup of this forbidden Wine
Must drown the memory of that insolence."

"Yet can not—ever! For it is forbid
Still by that quenchless Soul within us hid,
Which cries, 'Feed—feed me not on Wine alone,
For to Immortal Banquets I am bid.'"

"Well oft I think that never blows so red
The Rose as where some buried Cæsar bled:
That every Hyacinth the Garden wears
Dropt in her lap from some once lovely Head."

"Then if, from the dull Clay thro' with Life's throes,
More beautiful spring Hyacinth and Rose,
Will the great Gardener for the uprooted soul
Find Use no sweeter than—useless Repose?"

"We cannot know—so fill the cup that clears
To-day of past regret and future fears:
To-morrow!—Why, To-morrow we may be
Ourselves with Yesterday's sev'n thousand Years."

"No Cup there is to bring oblivion
More during than Regret and Fear—no, none!
For Wine that's Wine to-day may change and be
Marah before to-morrow's Sands have run."

"Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument
About it and about: but evermore
Came out by the same Door where in I went."

"The doors of Argument may lead Nowhither,
Reason become a Prison where may wither
From sunless eyes the Infinite, from hearts
All Hope, when their sojourn too long is thither."

"Up from Earth's Centre thro' the Seventh Gate
I rose, and on the throne of Saturn sate,
And many a Knot unravelled by the Road—
But not the Master-knot of Human fate."

"The Master-knot knows but the Master-hand
That scattered Saturn and his countless Band
Like seeds upon the unplanted heaven's Air:
The Truth we reap from them is Chaff thrice fanned."

"Yet if the Soul can fling the Dust aside
And naked on the air of Heaven ride,
Wer't not a shame—wer't not a shame for him
In this clay carcase crippled to abide?"

"No, for a day bound in this Dust may teach
More of the Sáki's Mind than we can reach
Through æons mounting still from Sky to Sky—
May open through all Mystery a breach."

"You speak as if Existence closing your
Account, and mine, should know the like no more;
The Eternal Sáki from that Bowl has poured
Millions of bubbles like us, and will pour."

"Bubbles we are, pricked by the point of Death.
But, in each bubble, may there be no Breath
That lifts it and at last to Freedom flies,
And o'er all heights of Heaven wandereth?"

"A moment's halt—a momentary taste
Of Being from the Well amid the Waste—
And Lo—the phantom Caravan has reached
The Nothing it set out from—Oh, make haste!"

"And yet it should be—it should be that we
Who drink shall drink of Immortality.
The Master of the Well has much to spare:
Will He say, 'Taste'—then shall we no more be?"

"The Moving Finger writes; and having writ,
Moves on; nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all your tears wash out a word of it."

"And were it other, might we not erase
The Letter of some Sorrow in whose place
No truer sounding, we should fail to spell
The Heart which yearns behind the mock-world's Face?"

"Well, this I know; whether the one True Light
Kindle to Love, or Wrath-consume me, quite,
One flash of it within the Tavern caught
Better than in the Temple lost outright."

"In Temple or in Tavern 't may be lost.
And everywhere that Love hath any Cost
It may be found; the Wrath it seems is but
A Cloud whose Dew should make its power most."

"But see His Presence thro' Creation's veins
Running Quicksilver-like eludes your pains;
Taking all shapes from Máh to Máhi; and
They change and perish all—but He remains."

"All—it may be. Yet lie to sleep, and lo,
The soul seems quenched in Darkness—is it so?
Rather believe what seemeth not than seems
Of Death—until we know—until we know."

"So wastes the Hour—gone in the vain pursuit
Of This and That we strive o'er and dispute.
Better be jocund with the fruitful Grape
Than sadden after none, or bitter, Fruit."

"Better—unless we hope that grief is thrown
Across our Path by urgence of the Unknown,
Lest we may think we have no more to live
And bide content with dim-lit Earth alone."

"Then, strange, is't not? that of the myriads who
Before us passed the door of Darkness through
Not one returns to tell us of the Road,
Which to discover we must travel too?"

"Such is the Ban! but even though we heard
Love in Life's All we still should crave the word
Of one returned. Yet none is sure, we know,
Though they lie deep, they are by Death deterred."

"Send then thy Soul through the Invisible
Some letter of the After-life to spell:
And by and by thy Soul returned to thee
But answers, 'I myself am Heaven and Hell.'"

"From the Invisible, he does. But sent
Thro' Earth, where living Goodness tho' 'tis blent
With Evil dures, may he not read the Voice,
'To make thee but for Death were toil ill spent'?"

"Well, when the Angel of the darker drink
At last shall find us by the river-brink
And offering his Cup invite our souls
Forth to our lips to quaff, we shall not shrink."

"No. But if in the sable Cup we knew
Death without waking were the wilful brew,
Nobler it were to curse as Coward Him
Who roused us into light—then light withdrew."

"Then Thou who didst with pitfall and with gin
Beset the Road I was to wander in,
Thou wilt not with Predestined Evil round
Enmesh, and then impute my fall to sin."

"He will not. If one evil we endure
To ultimate Debasing, oh, be sure
'Tis not of Him predestined, and the sin
Not His nor ours—but Fate's He could not cure."

"Yet, ah, that Spring should vanish with the Rose!
That Youth's sweet-scented Manuscript should close!
The Nightingale that on the branches sang,
Ah, whence, and whither flown again, who knows?"

"So does it seem—no other joys like these!
Yet Summer comes, and Autumn's honoured ease;
And wintry Age, is't ever whisperless
Of that Last Spring, whose Verdure may not cease?"

"Still, would some winged Angel ere too late
Arrest the yet unfolded roll of Fate,
And make the stern Recorder otherwise
Enregister, or quite obliterate!"

"To otherwise enregister believe
He toils eternally, nor asks Reprieve.
And could Creation perfect from his hands
Have come at Dawn, none overmuch should grieve."

So till the wan and early scent of day
We strove, and silent turned at last away,
Thinking how men in ages yet unborn
Would ask and answer—trust and doubt and pray.

JAEL

Jehovah! Jehovah! art Thou not stronger than gods of the heathen?
I slew him, that Sisera, prince of the host Thou dost hate.
But fear of his blood is upon me, about me is breathen
His spirit—by night and by day come voices that wait.

Athirst and affrightened he fled from the star-wrought waters of Kishon.
His face was as wool when he swooned at the door of my tent.
The Lord hath given him into the hand of perdition,
I smiled—but he saw not the face of my cunning intent.

He thirsted for water: I fed him the curdless milk of the cattle.
He lay in the tent under purple and crimson of Tyre.
He slept and he dreamt of the surge and storming of battle.
Ah ha! but he woke not to waken Jehovah's ire.

He slept as he were a chosen of Israel's God Almighty.
A dog out of Canaan!—thought he I was woman alone?
I slipt like an asp to his ear and laughed for the sight he
Would give when the carrion kites should tear to his bone.

I smote thro' his temple the nail, to the dust, a worm, did I bind him.
My heart was a-leap with rage and a-quiver with scorn.
And I danced with a holy delight before and behind him—
I that am called blessèd o'er all unto Judah born.

"Aye, come, I will show thee, O Barak, a woman is more than a warrior,"
I cried as I lifted the door wherein Sisera lay.
"To me did he fly and I shall be called his destroyer—
I, Jael, who am subtle to find for the Lord a way!"

"Above all the daughters of men be blest—of Gilead or Asshur,"
Sang Deborah, prophetess, then, from her waving palm.
"Behold her, ye people, behold her the heathen's abasher;
Behold her the Lord hath uplifted—behold and be calm!

"The mother of him at the window looks out thro' the lattice to listen—
Why roll not the wheels of his chariot? why does he stay?
Shall he not return with the booty of battle, and glisten
In songs of his triumph—ye women, why do ye not say?"

And I was as she who danced when the Seas were rended asunder
And stood, until Egypt pressed in to be drowned unto death.
My breasts were as fire with the glory, the rocks that were under
My feet grew quick with the gloating that beat in my breath.

At night I stole out where they cast him, a sop to the jackal and raven.
But his bones stood up in the moon and I shook with affright.
The strength shrank out of my limbs and I fell, a craven,
Before him—the nail in his temple gleamed bloodily bright.

I fly to the desert, I fly to the mountain—but they will not hide me.
His gods haunt the winds and the caves with vengeance that cries
For judgment upon me; the stars in their courses deride me—
The stars Thou hast hung with a breath in the wandering skies.

Jehovah! Jehovah! I slew him, the scourge and sting of Thy Nation.
Take from me his spirit, take from me the voice of his blood.
With madness I rave—by day and by night, defamation!
Jehovah, release me! Jehovah! if still Thou art God!

TO THE SEA

Art thou enraged, O sea, with the blue peace
Of heaven, so to uplift thine armèd waves,
Thy billowing rebellion 'gainst its ease,
And with Tartarean mutter from cold caves,
From shuddering profundities where shapes
Of awe glide thro' entangled leagues of ooze,
To hoot thy watery omens evermore,
And evermore thy moanings interfuse
With seething necromancy and mad lore?

Or, dost thou labour with the drifting bones
Of countless dead, thou mighty Alchemist,
Within whose stormy crucible the stones
Of sunk primordial shores, granite and schist,
Are crumbled by thine all-abrasive beat?
With immemorial chanting to the moon,
And cosmic incantation, dost thou crave
Rest to be found not till thy wild be strewn
Frigid and desert over earth's last grave?

Thou seemest with immensity mad, blind—
With raving deaf, with wandering forlorn;
Parent of Demogorgon whose dire mind
Is night and earthquake, shapeless shame and scorn
Of the o'ermounting birth of Harmony.
Bound in thy briny bed and gnawing earth
With foamy writhing and fierce-panted tides,
Thou art as Fate in torment of a dearth
Of black disaster and destruction's strides.

And how thou dost drive silence from the world,
Incarnate Motion of all mystery!
Whose waves are fury-wings, whose winds are hurled
Whither thy Ghost tempestuous can see
A desolate apocalypse of death.
Oh, how thou dost drive silence from the world,
With emerald overflowing, waste on waste
Of flashing susurration, dashed and swirled
O'er isles and continents that shrink abased!

Nay, frustrate Hope art thou, of the Unknown,
Gathered from primal mist and firmament;
A surging shape of Life's unfathomed moan,
Whelming humanity with fears unmeant.
Yet do I love thee, O, above all fear,
And loving thee unconquerably trust
The runes that from thy ageless surfing start
Would read, were they revealed, gust upon gust,
That Immortality is might of heart!

THE DAY-MOON

So wan, so unavailing,
Across the vacant day-blue dimly trailing!

Last night, sphered in thy shining,
A Circe—mystic destinies divining;

To-day but as a feather
Torn from a seraph's wing in sinful weather,

Down-drifting from the portals
Of Paradise, unto the land of mortals.

Yet do I feel thee awing
My heart with mystery, as thy updrawing

Moves thro' the tides of Ocean
And leaves lorn beaches barren of its motion;

Or strands upon near shallows
The wreck whose weirded form at night unhallows

The fisher maiden's prayers—
"For him!—that storms may take not unawares!"

So wan, so unavailing,
Across the vacant day-blue dimly trailing!

But Night shall come atoning
Thy phantom life thro' day, and high enthroning

Thee in her chambers arrased
With star-hieroglyphs, leave thee unharassed

To glide with silvery passion,
Till in earth's shadow swept thy glowings ashen.

A SEA-GHOST

Oh, fisher-fleet, go in from the sea
And furl your wings.
The bay is gray with the twilit spray
And the loud surf springs.

The chill buoy-bell is rung by the hands
Of all the drowned,
Who know the woe of the wind and tow
Of the tides around.

Go in, go in! Oh, haste from the sea,
And let them rest—
A son and one who was wed and one
Who went down unblest.

Aye, even as I, whose hands at the bell
Now labour most.
The tomb has gloom, but Oh, the doom
Of the drear sea-ghost!

He evermore must wander the ooze
Beneath the wave,
Forlorn—to warn of the tempest born,
And to save—to save!

Then go, go in! and leave us the sea,
For only so
Can peace release us and give us ease
Of our salty woe.

ON THE MOOR

I met a child upon the moor
A-wading down the heather;
She put her hand into my own,
We crossed the fields together.

I led her to her father's door—
A cottage mid the clover.
I left her—and the world grew poor
To me, a childless rover.

I met a maid upon the moor,
The morrow was her wedding.
Love lit her eyes with lovelier hues
Than the eve-star was shedding.

She looked a sweet good-bye to me,
And o'er the stile went singing.
Down all the lonely night I heard
But bridal bells a-ringing.

I met a mother on the moor,
By a new grave a-praying.
The happy swallows in the blue
Upon the winds were playing.

"Would I were in his grave," I said,
"And he beside her standing!"
There was no heart to break if death
For me had made demanding.

THE CRY OF EVE

Down the palm-way from Eden in the mid-night
Lay dreaming Eve by her outdriven mate,
Pillowed on lilies that still told the sweet
Of birth within the Garden's ecstasy.
Pitiful round her face that could not lose
Its memory of God's perfecting was strewn
Her troubled hair, and sigh grieved after sigh
Along her loveliness in the white moon.
Then sudden her dream, too cruelly impent
With pain, broke and a cry fled shuddering
Into the wounded stillness from her lips—
As, cold, she fearfully felt for his hand,
And tears, that had before ne'er visited
Her lids with anguish, drew from her the moan:

"Oh, Adam! What have I dreamed?
Now do I understand His words, so dim
To creatures that had quivered but with bliss!
Since at the dusk thy kiss to me, and I
Wept at caresses that were once all joy,
I have slept, seeing through Futurity
The uncreated ages visibly!
Foresuffering phantoms crowded in the womb
Of Time, and all with lamentable mien
Accusing without mercy, thee and me!
And without pity! for tho' some were far
From birth, and without name, others were near—
Sodom and dark Gomorrah—from whose flames
Fleeing one turned ... how like her look to mine
When the tree's horror trembled on my taste!
And Babylon upbuilded on our sin;
And Nineveh, a city sinking slow
Under a shroud of sandy centuries
That hid me not from the buried cursing eyes
Of women who e'er-bitterly gave birth!
Ah, to be mother of all misery!
To be first-called out of the earth and fail
For a whole world! To shame maternity
For women evermore—women whose tears
Flooding the night, no hope can wipe away!
To see the wings of Death, as, Adam, thou
Hast not, endlessly beating, and to hear
The swooning ages suffer up to God!
And Oh, that birth-cry of a guiltless child
In it are sounding of our sin and woe,
With prophesy of ill beyond all years!
Yearning for beauty never to be seen—
Beatitude redeemless evermore!

"And I whose dream mourned with all motherhood
Must hear it soon! Already do soft skill,
Assuasive lulls, enticings and quick tones
Of tenderness—that will like light awake
The folded memory children shall bring
Out of the dark—move in me longingly.
Yet thou, Adam, dear fallen thought of God,
Thou, when thou too shall hear humanity
Cry in thy child, wilt groaning wish the world
Back in unsummoned Void! and, woe! wilt fill
God's ear with troubled wonder and unrest!"

Softly he soothed her straying hair, and kissed
The fever from her lips. Over the palms
The sad moon poured her peace into their eyes,
Till Sleep, the angel of forgetfulness,
Folded again dark wings above their rest.

MARY AT NAZARETH

I know, Lord, Thou hast sent Him—
Thou art so good to me!—
But Thou hast only lent Him,
His heart's for Thee!

I dared—Thy poor hand-maiden—
Not ask a prophet-child:
Only a boy-babe laden
For earth—and mild.

But this one Thou hast given
Seems not for earth—or me!
His lips flame truth from heaven,
And vanity

Seem all my thoughts and prayers
When He but speaks Thy Law;
Out of my heart the tares
Are torn by awe!

I cannot look upon Him,
So strangely burn His eyes—
Hath not some grieving drawn Him
From Paradise?

For Thee, for Thee I'd live, Lord!
Yet oft I almost fall
Before Him—Oh, forgive, Lord,
My sinful thrall!

But e'en when He was nursing,
A baby at my breast,
It seemed He was dispersing
The world's unrest.

Thou bad'st me call Him "Jesus,"
And from our heavy sin
I know He shall release us,
From Sheol win.

But, Lord, forgive! the yearning
That He may sometimes be
Like other children, learning
Beside my knee,

Or playing, prattling, seeking
For help—comes to my heart....
Ah sinful, Lord, I'm speaking—
How good Thou art!

ADELIL

Proud Adelil! Proud Adelil!
Why does she lie so cold?
(I made her shrink, I made her reel,
I made her white lids fold.)

We sat at banquet, many maids,
She like a Valkyr free.
(I hated the glitter of her braids,
I hated her blue eye's glee!)

In emerald cups was poured the mead;
Icily blew the night.
(But tears unshed and woes that bleed
Brew bitterness and spite.)

"A goblet to my love!" she cried,
"Prince where the sea-winds fly!"
(Her love!—it was for that he died,
And for it she should die.)

She lifted the cup and drank—she saw
A heart within its lees.
(I laughed like the dead who feel the thaw
Of summer in the breeze.)

They looked upon her stricken still,
And sudden they grew appalled.
("It is thy lover's heart!" I shrill
As the sea-crow to her called.)

Palely she took it—did it give
Ease there against her breast?
(Dead—dead she swooned, but I cannot live,
And dead I shall not rest.)

INTIMATION

All night I smiled as I slept,
For I heard the March-wind feel
Blindly about in the trees without
For buds to heal.

All night in dreams, for I smelt,
In the rain-wet woods and fields,
The coming flowers and the glad green hours
That summer yields.

All night—and when at dawn
I woke with the blue-bird's cheep,
Winter with all its chill and pall
Seemed but a sleep.

IN JULY

This path will tell me where dark daisies dance
To the white sycamores that dell them in;
Where crow and flicker cry melodious din,
And blackberries in ebon ripeness glance
Luscious enticings under briery green.
It will slip under coppice limbs that lean
Brushingly as the slow-belled heifer pants
Toward weedy water-plants
That shade the pool-sunk creek's reluctant trance.

I shall find bell-flower spires beside the gap
And lady phlox within the hollow's cool;
Cedar with sudden memories of Yule
Above the tangle tipped with blue skullcap.
The high hot mullein fond of the full sun
Will watch and tell the low mint when I've won
The hither wheat where idle breezes nap,
And fluffy quails entrap
Me from their brood that crouch to escape mishap.

Then I shall reach the mossy water-way
That gullies the dense hill up to its peak,
There dally listening to the eerie eke
Of drops into cool chalices of clay.
Then on, for elders odorously will steal
My senses till I climb up where they heal
The livid heat of its malingering ray,
And wooingly betray
To memory many a long-forgotten day.

There I shall rest within the woody peace
Of afternoon. The bending azure frothed
With silveryness, the sunny pastures swathed,
Fragrant with morn-mown clover and seed-fleece;
The hills where hung mists muse, and Silence calls
To Solitude thro' aged forest halls,
Will waft into me their mysterious ease,
And in the wind's soft cease
I shall hear hintings of eternities.

FROM ABOVE

What do I care if the trees are bare
And the hills are dark
And the skies are gray.

What do I care for chill in the air
For crows that cark
At the rough wind's way.

What do I care for the dead leaves there—
Or the sullen road
By the sullen wood.

There's heart in my heart
To bear my load!
So enough, the day is good!

BY THE INDUS

Thou art late, O Moon,
Late,
I have waited thee long.
The nightingale's flown to her nest,
Sated with song.
The champak hath no odour more
To pour on the wind as he passeth o'er—
But my heart it will not rest.

Thou art late, O Love,
Late,
For the moon is a-wane.
The kusa-grass sighs with my sighs,
Burns with my pain.
The lotus leans her head on the stream—
Shall I not lean to thy breast and dream,
Dream ere the night-cool dies?

Thou art late, O Death,
Late,
For he did not come!
A pariah is my heart,
Cast from him—dumb!
I cannot cry in the jungle's deep—
Is it not time for the Tomb—and Sleep?
O Death, strike with thy dart!

EVOCATION

(Nikko, Japan, 1905)

Dim thro' the mist and cryptomeria
Booms the temple bell,
Down from the tomb of Iêyasü
Yearning, as a knell.

Down from the tomb where many an æon
Silently has knelt;
Many a pilgrimage of millions—
Still about it felt.

Still, for I see them gather ghostly
Now, as the numb sound
Floats, an unearthly necromancy,
From the past's dead ground.

See the invisible vast millions,
Hear their soundless feet
Climbing the shrine-ways to the gilded
Carven temple's seat.

And, one among them—pale among them—
Passes waning by.
What is it tells me mystically
That strange one was I?...

Weird thro' the mist and cryptomeria
Dies the bell—'tis dumb.
After how many lives returning
Shall I hither come?

Hither again! and climb the votive
Ever mossy ways?
Who shall the gods be then, the millions
Meek, entreat or praise?

THE CHILD GOD GAVE

"Give me a little child
To draw this dreary want out of my breast,"
I cried to God.
"Give, for my days beat wild
With loneliness that will not rest
But under the still sod!"

It came—with groping lips
And little fingers stealing aimlessly
About my heart.
I was like one who slips
A-sudden into Ecstasy
And thinks ne'er to depart.

"Soon he will smile," I said,
"And babble baby love into my ears—
How it will thrill!"
I waited—Oh, the dread,
The clutching agony, the fears!—
He was so strange and still.

Did I curse God and rave
When they came shrinkingly to tell me 'twas
A witless child?
No ... I ... I only gave
One cry ... just one ... I think ... because ...
You know ... he never smiled.

THE WINDS

The East Wind is a Bedouin,
And Nimbus is his steed;
Out of the dusk with the lightning's thin
Blue scimitar he flies afar,
Whither his rovings lead.
The Dead Sea waves
And Egypt caves
Of mummied silence laugh
When he mounts to quench the Siroc's stench
And to wrench
From his clutch the tyrant's staff.

The West Wind is an Indian brave
Who scours the Autumn's crest.
Dashing the forest down as a slave,
He tears the leaves from its limbs and weaves
A maelstrom for his breast.
Out of the night
Crying to fright
The earth he swoops to spoil—
There is furious scathe in the whirl of his wrath,
In his path
There is misery and moil.

The North Wind is a Viking—cold
And cruel, armed with death!
Born in the doomful deep of the old
Ice Sea that froze ere Ymir rose
From Niflheim's ebon breath.
And with him sail
Snow, Frost, and Hail,
Thanes mighty as their lord,
To plunder the shores of Summer's stores—
And his roar's
Like the sound of Chaos' horde.

The South Wind is a Troubadour;
The Spring 's his serenade.
Over the mountain, over the moor,
He blows to bloom from the winter's tomb
Blossom and leaf and blade.
He ripples the throat
Of the lark with a note
Of lilting love and bliss,
And the sun and the moon, the night and the noon,
Are a-swoon—
When he woos them with his kiss.

TRANSCENDED

I who was learnèd in death's lore
Oft held her to my heart
And spoke of days when we should love no more—
In the long dust, apart.

"Immortal?" No—it could not be,
Spirit with flesh must die.
Tho' heart should pray and hope make endless plea,
Reason would still outcry.

She died. They wrapped her in the dust—
I heard the dull clod's dole,
And then I knew she lived—that death's dark lust
Could never touch her soul!

LOVE'S WAY TO CHILDHOOD

We are not lovers, you and I,
Upon this sunny lane,
But children who have never known
Love's joy or pain.

The trees we pass, the summer brook,
The bird that o'er us darts—
We do not know 'tis they that thrill
Our childish hearts.

The earth-things have no name for us,
The ploughing means no more
Than that they like to walk the fields
Who plough them o'er.

The road, the wood, the heaven, the hills
Are not a World to-day—
But just a place God's made for us
In which to play.

AUTUMN

I know her not by fallen leaves
Or resting heaps of hay;
Or by the sheathing mists of mauve
That soothe the fiery day.

I know her not by plumping nuts,
By redded hips and haws,
Or by the silence hanging sad
Under the wind's sere pause.

But by her sighs I know her well—
They are like Sorrow's breath;
And by this longing, strangely still,
For something after death.

SHINTO

(Miyajima, Japan, 1905)

Lowly temple and torii,
Shrine where the spirits of wind and wave
Find the worship and glory we
Give to the one God great and grave—

Lowly temple and torii,
Shrine of the dead, I hang my prayer
Here on your gates—the story see
And answer out of the earth and air.

For I am Nature's child, and you
Were by the children of Nature built.
Ages have on you smiled—and dew
On you for ages has been spilt—

Till you are beautiful as Time
Mossy and mellowing ever makes:
Wrapped as you are in lull—or rhyme
Of sounding drum that sudden breaks.

This is my prayer then, this: that I
Too may reverence all of life,
Lose no power and miss no high
Awe, of a world with wonder rife!

That I may build in spirit fair
Temples and torii on each place
That I have loved—Oh, hear it, Air,
Ocean and Earth, and grant your grace!

MAYA

(Hiroshima, Japan, 1905)

Pale sampans up the river glide,
With set sails vanishing and slow;
In the blue west the mountains hide,
As visions that too soon will go.

Across the rice-lands, flooded deep,
The peasant peacefully wades on—
As, in unfurrowed vales of sleep,
A phantom out of voidness drawn.

Over the temple cawing flies
The crow with carrion in his beak.
Buddha within lifts not his eyes
In pity or reproval meek;

Nor, in the bamboos, where they bow
A respite from the blinding sun,
The old priest—dreaming painless how
Nirvana's calm will come when won.

"All is illusion, Maya, all
The world of will," the spent East seems
Whispering in me; "and the call
Of Life is but a call of dreams."

A JAPANESE MOTHER

(In Time of War)

The young stork sleeps in the pine-tree tops,
Down on the brink of the river.
My baby sleeps by the bamboo copse—
The bamboo copse where the rice field stops:
The bamboos sigh and shiver.

The white fox creeps from his hole in the hill;
I must pray to Inari.
I hear her calling me low and chill—
Low and chill when the wind is still
At night and the skies hang starry.

And ever she says, "He's dead! he's dead!
Your lord who went to battle.
How shall your baby now be fed,
Ukibo fed, with rice and bread—
What if I hush his prattle?"

The red moon rises as I slip back,
And the bamboo stems are swaying.
Inari was deaf—and yet the lack,
The fear and lack, are gone, and the rack,
I know not why—with praying.

For though Inari cared not at all,
Some other god was kinder.
I wonder why he has heard my call,
My giftless call—and what shall befall?...
Hope has but left me blinder!

THE DEAD GODS

I thought I plunged into that dire Abyss
Which is Oblivion, the house of Death.
I thought there blew upon my soul the breath
Of time that was but never more can be.

Ten thousand years within its void I thought
I lay, blind, deaf, and motionless, until—
Though with no eye nor ear—I felt the thrill
Of seeing, heard its phantoms move and sigh.

First one beside me spoke, in tones that told
He once had been a god—"Persephone,
Tear from thy brow its withered crown, for we
Are king and queen of Tartarus no more;
And that wan, shrivelled sceptre in thy hand,
Why dost thou clasp it still? Cast it away,
For now it hath no virtue that can sway
Dull shades or drive the Furies to their spoil.

"Cast it away, and give thy palm to mine:
Perchance some unobliterated spark
Of memory shall warm this dismal Dark.
Perchance—Vain! vain! love could not light such gloom."

He sank.... Then in great ruin by him moved
Another as in travail of some thought
Near unto birth; and soon from lips distraught
By aged silence, fell, with hollow woe:

"Ah, Pluto, dost thou, one time lord of Styx
And Acheron make moan of night and cold?
Were we upon Olympus as of old
Laughter of thee would rock its festal height.

"But think, think thee of me, to whom or gloom
Or cold were more unknown than impotence!
See the unhurlèd thunderbolt brought hence
To mock me when I dream I still am Jove!"

Too much it was: I withered in the breath;
And lay again ten thousand lifeless years;
And then my soul shook, woke—and saw three biers
Chiselled of solid night majestically.

The forms outlaid upon them were enwound
As with the silence of eternity.
Numbing repose dwelt o'er them like a sea,
That long hath lost tide, wave and roar, in death.

"Ptah, Ammon, and Osiris are their names,"
A spirit hieroglyphed unto my soul.
"Ptah, Ammon, and Osiris—they who stole
The heart of Egypt from the God of gods:

"Aye, they! and these!" pointing to many wraiths
That stood around—Baal, Ormuzd, Indra, all
Whom frightened ignorance and sin's appall
Had given birth, close-huddled in despair.

Their eyes were fixed upon a cloven slope
Down whose descent still other forms a-fresh
From earth were drawn, by the unceasing mesh
Of Time to their irrevocable end.

"They are the gods," one said—"the gods whom men
Still taunt with wails for help."—Then a deep light
Upbore me from the Gulf, and thro' its might
I heard the worlds cry, "God alone is God!"

CALL TO YOUR MATE, BOB-WHITE

O call to your mate, bob-white, bob-white,
And I will call to mine.
Call to her by the meadow-gate,
And I will call by the pine.

Tell her the sun is hid, bob-white,
The windy wheat sways west.
Whistle again, call clear and run
To lure her out of her nest.

For when to the copse she comes, shy bird,
With Mary down the lane
I'll walk, in the dusk of the locust tops,
And be her lover again.

Ay, we will forget our hearts are old,
And that our hair is gray.
We'll kiss as we kissed at pale sunset
That summer's halcyon day.

That day, can it fade?... ah, bob, bob-white,
Still calling—calling still?
We're coming—a-coming, bent and weighed,
But glad with the old love's thrill!

THE DYING POET

Swing in thy splendour, O silent sun,
Drawing my heart with thee over the west!
Done is its day as thy day is done,
Fallen its quest!

Swoon into purple and rose, then die:
Tho' to arise again out of the dawn:
Die as I praise thee, ere thro' the Dark Lie
Of death I am drawn!

Sunk? art thou sunken? how great was life!
I like a child could cry for it again—
Cry for its beauty, pang, fleeting and strife,
Its women, its men!

For, how I drained it with love and delight!
Opened its heart with the magic of grief!
Reaped every season—its day and its night!
Loved every sheaf!

Aye, not a meadow my step has trod,
Never a flower swung sweet to my face,
Never a heart that was touched of God,
But taught me its grace.

Off from my lids then a moment yet,
Fingering Death, for again I must see
Lifted by memory all that I met
Under Time's lee.

There!... I'm a child again—fair, so fair!
Under the eyes does a marvel not burn?
Speak they not vision—and frenzy to dare,
That still in me yearn?...

Youth! my wild youth!—O, blood of my heart,
Still you can answer with swirling the thought!
Still like the mountain-born rapid can dart,
Joyous, distraught!...

Love, and her face again! there by the wood!—
Come, thou invisible Dark with thy mask!
Shall I not learn if she lives? and could
I more of thee ask?...

Turn me away from the ashen west,
Where love's sad planet unveils to the dusk.
Something is stealing like light from my breast—
Soul from its husk ...

Soft!... Where the dead feel the buried dead,
Where the high hermit-bell hourly tolls,
Bury me, near to the haunting tread
Of life that o'errolls.

THE OUTCAST

I did not fear,
But crept close up to Christ and said,
"Is he not here?"

Song-Surf

SONG-SURF

By the Same Author

SONG-SURF

BY

CALE YOUNG RICE

FOREWORD

CONTENTS

SONG-SURF

WITH OMAR

JAEL

TO THE SEA

THE DAY-MOON

A SEA-GHOST

ON THE MOOR

THE CRY OF EVE

MARY AT NAZARETH

ADELIL

INTIMATION

IN JULY

FROM ABOVE

BY THE INDUS

EVOCATION

(Nikko, Japan, 1905)

THE CHILD GOD GAVE

THE WINDS

TRANSCENDED

LOVE'S WAY TO CHILDHOOD

AUTUMN

SHINTO

(Miyajima, Japan, 1905)

MAYA

(Hiroshima, Japan, 1905)

A JAPANESE MOTHER

(In Time of War)

THE DEAD GODS

CALL TO YOUR MATE, BOB-WHITE

THE DYING POET

THE OUTCAST